Technical Field of Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to in-route trajectory planning for vehicles based on predictive weather forecasts, and more particularly, flight deck in-flight trajectory planning for aircraft based on predictive weather forecasts.
Description of the Prior Art
Predictive weather forecasts, particularly convective forecasts, are designed for, and made available to, air traffic controllers and airline dispatchers on the ground, for tactical and strategic planning purposes. For example, the Collaborative Convective Forecast Product (CCFP) is the primary tool brought together by the meteorological community and the commercial aviation industry to address the impact of convective weather on the NAS at strategic time frames of 2-6 hours [2]. The CCFP has been undergoing continual revisions since it was first brought out in 1999, in terms of its update cycle and geographical coverage, as well as its graphic representations [3]. In its current version, the CCFP is available primarily in an ASCII coded text format [4].
There are also simplified graphical representations of part of the information. Early versions of the CCFP painted color coded polygons over a map of the domestic US to represent convective activities (5). Colors in yellow, orange, and red represents expected coverage from low (25% to 49%) to high (75% to 100%). Polygons are accompanied by a textbox providing additional information including echo tops and coincidence levels. The current version of CCFP uses the density of pattern shading (sparse, medium, and solid) to represent coverage and uses color (gray and blue) to represent the forecaster's confidence level (low and high, respectively).